


hello world

by sharkfish



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mutual Pining, Underage Drinking, references to 9/11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkfish/pseuds/sharkfish
Summary: Imagine boys bent over laptops building things, getting around their respective parental figures’ attempts to stop them from staying up all night on the internet. Imagine boys on the precipice of a millennium, where everything changes.





	hello world

**Author's Note:**

> with assistance from [casbean](http://casbean.tumblr.com) and [suckerfordeansfreckles](http://suckerfordeansfreckles.tumblr.com)

The story could start in a lot of places, but we’ll zoom in here: Castiel Novak, age twelve, colt-lanky, in first period World History, the sleeves of an oversize hoodie pulled down over his hands.

He likes to tuck up next to the wall at the back, where no one can look at him, where sometimes he can sneak his book out under the desk. He’s already swung his backpack off when he realizes his usual seat is taken by a small boy — or maybe he just looks small because his leather jacket is even huger than Cas’s hoodie — with a fidgeting gaze.

“Shit, did I take your seat?” the kid says, standing and making way for Cas. “Hey, I like your hair.”

Cas tugs self-consciously at the unruly bit at the front. Gabe hasn’t stopped making fun of him since he stained the tub electric blue, but he likes it. “Thanks,” he says, and takes his seat. Cas doesn’t give Dean another thought, but you and I can probably guess that Dean keeps peeking at him through the whole class, and the next one where Cas doesn’t notice him at all.

But they end up at the same table during lunch. The table with the weirdos, where Dean only fits because he’s the new kid.

Dean gives Cas a tentative smile. “I saw you’re doing some kind of special project in computer class,” Dean says. “That’s pretty cool.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Cas says.

“I’m not really that good at them.” Dean mimes pecking at a keyboard with his pointer fingers, tongue between his teeth like he’s concentrating extra hard.

Cas rolls his eyes and laughs at the same time. “You’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’ve never been to a school with a computer class before.”

Cas blinks. “Really?” Dean shrugs, and Cas plows ahead without thinking. “I could show you.”

And that, constant reader, is where _their_ story starts, with the words _Hello World_ marching across a twenty pound monitor.

 

Here’s what Cas figures out, though Dean will never, ever say it, not a single time in their entire lifetime together: John Winchester, fueled by drink and a fractured heart, made Dean’s life a living hell all the way up to his untimely death.

Dean will never, ever admit it, but Cas figures out that Dean is better off without his father.

Cas can’t fix it. He doesn’t know how to tell Dean that it’s not normal to have no problem stitching up your own calf after a bicycle accident, that regular kids don’t have years of basic medic experience. Dean is the one who checks all the locks at night, even at Cas’s house.

But Cas remembers reading about that study with the monkeys and the wire mothers, so he doesn’t mind when he wakes up in the middle of the night during a sleepover to find Dean cuddled up against his side.

Cas’s parents don’t have to figure it out because Bobby pretty much spells it out. It doesn’t matter, because they adored Dean from the moment Cas first mentioned him. They’d been feeling like they were losing Cas, though they weren’t sure to where. Somewhere in his own mind where monsters lurk.

Cas and Dean help each other find their smiles again.

 

Fast forward. They’re inseparable. Imagine boys bent over laptops building things, getting around their respective parental figures’ attempts to stop them from staying up all night on the internet. Imagine boys on the precipice of a millennium, where everything changes.

Imagine, if you will, that these boys have never had a best friend before. Imagine they don’t really know the boundaries, don’t really know how these things are supposed to go. Imagine Cas thinks everyone feels this way about their best friend.

 

Cas calls Dean on a Monday night to let him know that he’s taking the next day off of school. He’s barely sick, but he skips so rarely that his mom doesn’t ask for details.

The next morning, Dean flops into bed next to him while the curtains are still pulled. “What are you doing here?” Cas says, not bothering to open his eyes. He knows it’s Dean from the weight of him on the mattress, the way he smells.

“Thought I’d hang out with you today,” Dean says. “And school’s probably going to be weird. Some idiot flew a plane into the World Trade Center. Terrorism or something.”

“I’m going back to sleep,” Cas mumbles, flipping away from Dean.

Dean doesn’t climb under the blankets but he settles, too. He’s breathing deep before Cas is, but he’s not there when Cas wakes up. He’s in the living room, watching the tv. “Three planes,” Dean says. “Two at the World Trade Center and one at the Pentagon. This is like — war, right?”

Cas sits next to him, close so their legs are pressed together. Rudy Giuliani's tinny voice is saying, _More than any of us can bear._ “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

Later, people will ask if they remember where they were when the towers fell. Of course they do, because they were hardly anywhere that wasn’t _together_ during those years.

 

Dean has a confession to make.

Cas doesn’t know it will be a confession, that it’ll burst out of Dean, halting like gunshots, that _I — think maybe — I think I’m gay._

Back up.

Dean is very, very handsome, and suddenly girls are noticing. So Cas is resigned, but unsurprised, when Dean starts to drift, distant even when sitting directly next to him. Cas tells himself to be happy for Dean. He’ll accept this separation with dignity.

At the end of the week, Dean drives Cas home and kicks off his shoes in the entryway — later Cas’s mom will ask if Dean was raised in a barn and glare until he puppy-eyes apologizes — and goes through the kitchen cabinets until he finds a snack that meets his liking, just like he’s done nearly every Friday evening for years.

“Are you staying?” Cas says, and Dean puzzles over at him.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Oh. Ok.”

“Wanna get Chinese? I got a really good tip last night, I’ll buy.”

They bicker over appetizers. Dean calls to place the order because Cas hates phone calls and they spend the evening watching the same movies they always watch and Cas’s mom scowls at Dean about the shoes, then kisses him on the top of the head when she comes in the door.

So it’s later, once they’re bedded down and comfy, windows open to hear the chorus of crickets, when Dean says, “I need to tell you something. And — I get if you hate me, but just — Jesus, promise you won’t tell Bobby, ok? Even if you hate me.”

Cas sits up on an elbow to stare at Dean. The lights are off, but there’s a street light right outside Cas’s window and he can see Dean well enough to know Dean won’t meet his eyes. “I’d never hate you. And I’d never tell Bobby unless you’re dying or something.”

Dean huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah, I just —” he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “I — think maybe — I think I’m gay.”

Everything in Cas goes to blank-slate ice. Hands numb, brain thoughtless. His mouth says, “Oh.”

Dean sneaks a look at him. “‘Oh’?”

“Yeah. Oh. Ok. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with that.”

“All right, Jerry,” Dean says. “Thanks for making a joke in my moment of terror.”

Cas grins. “It was a good joke. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No,” Dean says, and Cas knows him well enough to know he’s blushing, even in the desaturated light. “I mean, there’s this guy at work. But it’s not — he’s older, so it’s not like there’s something.”

It’s not much later that Dean lets that guy from work take him out, which actually means they end up back in that guy’s trashy apartment and Dean pretends it’s romance. Or this is what it’s like, being with men, and Dean should’ve known better than to expect — something. Cas asked about the bruise on Dean’s neck the next day and he laughed it off.

Rewind back to when Dean has never heard that he has a pretty mouth for sucking cock. Instead, we’re back with Cas, who is melting slowly. “I haven’t told anyone,” Cas says, “but me too.”

“Oh,” Dean says, then grins. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

 

Here we drop in to witness an adolescent rite of passage: they get drunk together for the first time, and Cas has his first kiss.

Bobby’s been sober for a decade and Cas’s parents have never been interested in much more than the occasional bottle of grocery store wine, so they have to wheedle Gabe into donating a bottle from the copious stash he keeps at his apartment.

He gives them a bottle of flavored vodka. He knows — rightly so — that the cheapest shit full of sugar will lead to a killer hangover, which is not so much a punishment based on a moral protest as based on being an asshole and enjoying his little brother’s suffering. That’s what Cas gets for pretending for _years_ now that he and Dean aren’t homo for each other.

Cas and Dean consult the internet on how to properly drink strawberry banana vodka, but they don’t have any mixers so they end up shooting it. It’s disgusting, but luckily it doesn’t take much for them to get loud and laughing, singing along to their shared song collection on shuffle.

“Hey,” Dean says, and Cas smiles loopily over at him. They’re both flat on their backs on Cas’s bedroom floor, shoulders brushing. “This is fun.”

“Yeah,” Cas says. “It sucks that you work so much.”

Dean shrugs. He thinks he has an obligation to someone — his dad, maybe — to never rest.

Cas keeps staring at him. Dean’s cheeks are flushed pink, mouth soft and red. “Did you like kissing? With that guy?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dean says.

“I didn’t. When Meg assaulted me.”

Dean giggles. “It’s no good when it’s _assault.”_

Cas looks at the ceiling. He’s not sure if it’s him or the fan that’s spinning. “Show me a good kiss.”

Dean doesn’t even argue. He sits up on an elbow to lean over Cas. Cas watches him get closer, closer, still smiling. He pauses just before they touch, and Cas is momentarily sure that Dean will laugh it off, tease him for a few weeks, and then never think of it again.

And then Dean kisses him.

There aren’t fireworks in real life. It’s sticky-sweet, the flavor of red freeze pops but not as cold, and Cas just barely feels the flirt of Dean’s tongue before he retreats, tossing himself back onto the pergo floor they both helped install.

Cas licks his lips. Watches the fan. Nothing changes.

 

Lisa and Dean get paired together for a project in AP Physics — Cas went with chemistry instead — and then they go on a date and then Dean says he was just confused with the gay thing, because Lisa’s tits are amazing.

Lately, Cas isn’t always sure who he’s looking at when he looks at Dean.

Regardless, it’s 2005, and a couple of boys in small town Texas don’t really know that Dean can like Lisa’s tits _and_ the cut of Cas’s hipbones. And anyway, there’s nothing gay about appreciating the way Cas is settling into an adult body.

Cas is fully aware that his appreciation of Dean’s body would more accurately be called attraction. And more, as evidenced by the ice in his chest when he imagines all those girls’ hands on him.

 

We’ll skip the part where the thing between them chips and cracks. Tenuous, and then even less than that. They both go to UT, but Cas meets Charlie Bradbury and drops out after the first semester to start a website.

Soon Cas will grow up, and will finally stop checking Dean’s Facebook to see all the fun he’s been having with the friends that replaced Cas.

Soon, but not yet.

 

Cas is surprised to realize that he hasn’t talked to Dean in years when the text comes in. Things have been a whirlwind since he and Charlie launched Spade, and he’s lost touch with most everyone except their band of merry developers.

 **Dean:** Congratulations on spade, dude. I always knew you’d do something amazing.

He shows Charlie. “Wow,” she says. “Blast from the past.”

“What the hell do I say to this?”

“I dunno. Tell him you drive a Tesla now and don’t need him.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “I don’t think that would impress him even if it were true.”

“Are you trying to impress him?”

Cas bites his lip. He’s been trying to impress Dean since he was twelve years old, but he says, “No.”

Ignoring it for too long is stupid. Dean knows very well that Cas saw it nearly instantly. Cas is way overthinking his reply, but he doesn’t want Dean to know that.

This is ridiculous.

 **Cas:** Thanks. It’s been a crazy ride.

 **Dean:** I saw you in Time!!  
**Dean:** You look good btw

He shows it to Charlie. She raises her eyebrows and says, “That seems a little gay. Maybe he came back around.”

“He was very adamant in his heterosexuality.”

Cas thinks about his first kiss sometimes, his only kiss with Dean. It was brief and hardly anything; neither of them brought it up again. But surely a kiss from a straight boy wouldn’t feel like that. No sparks, but electric all the same.

 **Cas:** Are you jealous because you’ve aged badly? What are you up to these days?

 **Dean:** I bring the ruckus to the ladies and gents tyvm. Working on some AI shit but it hasn’t made me a millionaire yet.

“What kind of AI?” Charlie says. “Ask him.”

“I showed you assuming you would comment on the escalating gayness.”

“Oh, yeah. But — robots!”

 **Cas:** What kind of AI?

 **Dean:** Automatic cars

Cas is composing a reply when his phone rings. It’s Dean. “Hello?”

“Hey, so, I was about to chicken out asking over text. Can we — I’d really like to talk to you. Could we get coffee or something?”

“Ah,” Cas says. “Yes, we can do that.”

Dean lets out a breath that sounds like relief. “When?”

Despite his face in Time, Cas tries to stay behind the curtain, finagling code into behaving while Charlie plays the role of the wizard. Which means that, despite working eighty-plus hour weeks, there’s not much on his calendar.

But Cas fudges like it’ll take rearranging to pencil Dean in, so now he has a week to fret over what to wear. On the other side of the city, Dean practices his speech over and over.

 

Dean Winchester is, at nearly-thirty, gut-punchingly gorgeous. Cas gapes open-mouthed when Dean walks into the little cafe, but manages to rearrange his face into something more socially acceptable before Dean notices him.

Dean stops so abruptly that a teenager in Ugg boots runs into the back of him, and he doesn’t even notice to apologize. “Cas,” he says.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, standing.

“Holy shit,” Dean says. “I’m taller than you.”

“Congratulations on your growth spurt.”

Dean laughs and ducks his head and Cas watches the interaction as if from outside himself. The first boy he ever loved, standing tall in front of him. Dean’s in that same brown leather jacket he’s worn since before they met.

Once their coffees are in hand, they get sidetracked bent over a table talking about machine learning and the dawning of Web 3.0. It’s clearly not what Dean so urgently needed to talk to Cas about, but it’s like being kids again, where nothing but possibility stretches in front of them.

“You’re Peter Wiggin,” Dean says. “You decide what news people know about and when.”

“Those accusations are —”

The corner of Dean’s mouth twitches, and even after what seems like the vast gulf of time, Cas knows exactly what that means.

“Shut up,” Cas says instead, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Aw, come on,” Dean says. “I trust you way more than Fox News.”

“Is this why we’re here?”

“No,” Dean says, looking down. “This is stupid, ok? I know we haven’t been friends for a long time. But I — I miss you.”

Cas just stares at him. Dean glances up then away again, blushing.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “This is a waste of your time.”

“Of course not,” Cas says. “You’re never a waste of time.” Dean rolls his eyes, but Cas interrupts before he can make a smart-ass comment. “I miss you, too.”

“I had a whole speech,” Dean says. “Because I really fucked up. I left you.”

“I’m the one who dropped out of school and moved out.”

“Yeah, but maybe you wouldn’t have if I — I was a dick, ok? I knew you liked me and I knew I would never be good enough and — well. I didn’t really know about being bi so it seemed like…”

“It’s not up to you to decide if you’re good for me or not.”

“You sound like my therapist,” Dean says with a wry smile.

“A highly intelligent individual, your therapist.”

Dean laughs, head tilted back, and Cas is sixteen and desperately in love with his best friend again.

 

They whisper-toe around each other. The laughing comes back easy, and so does the silent language of lifelong best-friends-forever. But they don’t know if they’re allowed to touch or not, how much space is too much space. They feel like strangers whose bodies know each other innately and intimately.

Sometimes there’s a hush, and in the silence Cas can see a kiss forming, but it passes by the way some moments always do.

 

Yahoo makes an offer on Spade, and even though they’re still arguing about whether that’s a move they’re ready to make, Cas and Charlie get disastrously drunk in celebration.

Cas has never been much of a drunken-mistakes kind of person, but Dean texted him earlier asking when they were going to see Captain America, and Cas hadn’t answered yet.

 **Cas:** Come over now

 **Dean:** You have Captain America already?!?!  
**Dean:** I thought you were with Charlie tonight

 **Cas:** I’m drunk  
**Cas:** Come over  
**Cas:** I want to see you  
**Cas:** No captain America

 **Dean:** Headed that way in a min

Cas is dozing slumped over on his couch when Dean gives a quick rap to the door.

“Hey,” Dean says. “Wow, you _are_ drunk.”

Cas sways against the doorframe, looking Dean up and down blearily. “You look nice.”

Dean laughs and pushes into Cas’s apartment. “You need to get a nicer place, Richie Rich.”

“This is a nice place,” Cas says, whining. He manages to lock the door, but then stumbles before he can make it back to the couch. Dean catches him by the elbow.

“Whoa there, partner. Let’s put you to bed.”

“Good,” Cas says, “let’s go to bed.”

Dean follows Cas into his bedroom, and Cas thinks — or maybe even says — that he would enjoy Dean helping him out of his clothes very much in another circumstance. Dean snorts and says, “Yeah, yeah, my milkshake brings all the drunkards to the yard. Get in bed and I’ll bring you water.”

Dean walks out once Cas is safely collapsed into the sheets. Cas wiggles out of his boxers and then rolls onto his stomach to nestle into the pillows.

“Oh, come on, man,” Dean says, and Cas gives another half-hearted wiggle in response without bothering to open his eyes. “Jesus Christ. Sit up, you’ll thank me in the morning.”

Cas struggles to sit, scowling, and Dean hands him a cup with a shot of mouthwash in it. “Swish, don’t swallow.”

“I’m drunk, not stupid.” Cas swishes, spits, and trades the cup for a glass of water that he gulps half of while Dean watches. “Thank you.”

“Get your naked ass under the covers,” Dean says, pulling back the blankets.

“Only if you join me.”

“Like old times, huh?” Dean says. He sits on the edge of the bed and Cas watches — his vision only swimming a little — while he unties his shoes.

Cas flops back into the bed, squirming into the sheets. He misses the way Dean flushes when he glances over, and then Dean clambers over his legs to lie down next to him. “Nice bed,” Dean says, pulling the blankets over them and tucking the blankets under Cas’s chin, though he immediately shoves them off, his skin too hot to live in.

Dean leans over Cas to flip off the lamp, and he’s close enough to kiss, close enough for cas to see the spot he’d missed shaving in the morning. “You’re not going to puke, right?” Dean says.

“Ngh,” Cas says, already mostly asleep.

There’s a rustle of sheets as Dean gets comfortable. Cas flips over onto his stomach and starts snoring, but Dean’s awake in the dark for long time, wishing.

 

It’s been a very, very long time since Cas woke up with someone in his bed. And he wakes up in stages: a twitch of his hand to find a soft stomach under his palm; a shift of his hips to find his cock pressed up against a truly lovely ass, separated by a single layer of fabric; a murmur at the tickle of hair against his lips.

He’s lucky to rarely experience hangovers, though his memories of the latter part of the night before are decidedly hazy. He remembers Dean, though, smiling and nurturing.

“Mornin’,” Dean’s sleep-rough voice says.

Cas startles away, so violently that he tumbles off the side of the bed, yelping as his hip hits the hard floor. Dean scrambles to peer at him over the side of the bed. “Jesus, are you ok?”

Cas’s mortification only increases as he realizes he’s still mostly-hard, sitting on the floor and trying to decide how to start apologizing. “I’m — I’m fine.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“There might be bruises later.”

Dean laughs, but halfway through it turns fake, and Dean says, “That’s the first time someone has reacted to me in their bed like that.”

Cas flushes and stumbles to his feet, frantically pulling on last night’s jeans that are still on the floor. “I’m sorry. I think I invited you. But I…” Cas gestures vaguely between them, awkwardly at crotch level. “Sorry.”

Dean blushes too, and it’s so pretty on him, pink cheeks to match the deeper pink of his mouth. “It’s cool.” He looks down at the rumpled sheets. “No big deal. I like a good morning cuddle.”

“You always have.”

“Jesus, that’s embarrassing,” Dean says, his blush deepening.

“It was nice,” Cas says. His mouth is an idiot. “I liked it.”

“Just now? Or — before?”

Cas picks up his shirt, holds it awkwardly in front of his chest. “Both, I suppose.”

“Well, get back in here. It’s too goddamn early anyway.”

“I think I’m still a little drunk.” Cas is suddenly relieved that being horizontal is imminent.  

Dean laughs and lays down, gesturing for Cas. Cas flops on his back over the blankets, then turns to face Dean.

The story could start here, and in some ways it does: two grown men with a lifetime together rippling behind and in front of them. Someday they’ll take a honeymoon and lay together under the stars of some of the most beautiful places on the planet, but this is good for now. Cas’s crappy apartment with Dean in it.

“You were my first kiss,” Cas says, quietly.

“I know,” Dean says, quieter.

There’s a hush. A kiss forms, and Cas is determined to catch it this time.

Dean’s eyes widen when Cas shifts closer, but he doesn’t back away. Cas puts his hand on Dean’s elbow and slides it up his arm to tuck under the edge of his sleeve. Dean licks his lips. Cas kisses him.

Dean kisses back, but Cas pulls away first, putting a hand between their mouths. “I have tequila breath.”

“You do,” Dean says, laughing. “Good thing it wasn’t our first kiss.”

“I’m going to, um, take care of that,” Cas says. Dean’s eyes are bright and smiling. “I’ll be back.”

Cas stares in the mirror a long time while the water runs, a speck of toothpaste foam still on his mouth. He wonders if he’s the same person he was before he and Dean fell apart, if Dean would be in his bed if he hadn’t seen Cas’s face in _Time._ If Spade had never made it, and he was just a grunt in a cubicle.

“You ok?” Dean says, and Cas startles. Dean’s leaning against the doorframe, fake-casual but Cas can see all the places where he’s tense under his skin.

“I’m fine,” Cas says, turning away to wipe his mouth and hands on a towel.

“It’s cool if that was — you know, a mistake. I know it doesn’t mean anything.”

The bathroom is a weird place to have this conversation, but Cas still says, “What if you hadn’t seen me in _Time?”_

“What do you mean?”

“Would you have contacted me?”

“Maybe not,” Dean says. “I’m kind of a moron sometimes.”

“Did you think about me before that?”

Dean stands straight, crossing his arms. “You accusing me of something, Cas?”

“I don’t know.”

Dean takes a breath like he’s steeling himself for something and says, “I thought about you all the time. Been kind of in love with you since we were kids.”

Cas’s mouth falls open and his brain stalls for a handful of seconds. “Could you,” he finally manages, “repeat that somewhere that’s not the bathroom?”

Dean laughs, most of the tension leaving his shoulders almost instantly. “Which room do you prefer for this, princess?”

“I have the mushrooms you like for omelettes.”

“Kitchen it is,” Dean says.

Cas pauses on the way to put on a shirt, and Dean’s already digging through his fridge like he owns the place by the time Cas catches up.

 _“And_ sausage?” Dean says, smiling as he tosses the tube on the counter. “This is exactly why I’m — you know.”

“In love with me.”

Dean sobers. “Yeah.”

“Me too,” Cas says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from outside himself. “I love you too.”

Dean blushes and ducks his head and takes a half-step closer. “You want to try the kiss thing again?”

“After you make me an omelette.”

Dean rolls his eyes, grabs Cas’s wrist, and reels him in for a solid smack on the lips. They come apart laughing, both thinking simultaneously about how much lighter they feel after having said it. Cas can’t stop smiling, and Dean can’t stop touching him all through breakfast.

They end up back in bed, but before Cas has quite left for dreamland, Dean murmurs, “You gonna let Yahoo buy Spade?”

“I’m expected to do something bigger now.”

“Dude,” Dean says, turning around in Cas’s arms to glare at him. “Fuck what you’re expected to do. Take your money and run if you want. Retire in obscurity.”

“Will you move to Florida with me?”

“Arizona. Less crocodiles.”

Cas smiles. Dean smiles back. “I’ll think about it.”

“Cool,” Dean says, nestling under Cas’s chin. “Now shut up so I can nap.”

 

Dean realized he liked boys when he fell in love with his best friend. So it’s hard to believe, even decades later, that he wakes up next to his best friend every morning.

It’s the best kind of love story, the kind where they hold hands all the way to the end.

**Author's Note:**

> [reallyelegantsharkfish](http://reallyelegantsharkfish.tumblr.com) on tumblr
> 
> i'm terrible at replying to comments, but please know that hearing your reactions makes my day. thank you! <3


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